by Alex Hughes
The world became the depths, a place where light did not exist and was not needed. But I could still see, still perceive like a bat echolocating through the night. His mind was behind mine, tucked up on my back like a set of wings, blind and unaware.
I invited him in to see with my eyes, feel with my senses. I was slow, and awkward, not having done this in years. There had been a time when I could do it with an entire classful of students at once, a gift that had made me rare and valuable beyond price to the Guild. I couldn’t anymore, and that hurt. But there wasn’t time for guilt, or regret, or anything else in the moment. This moment was for teaching.
Where are we? Tommy’s voice came as he stared through my eyes.
Mindspace, I said. Mindspace at your house. This can be dangerous, realize that. But it’s wondrous too. Don’t go looking on your own; promise? And I’ll show you what I see.
Sure.
I got the impression he’d have agreed to anything at that point, just to see more.
I broke down the world into its eddies and swirls, and surfaced enough to see the minds around us. Loyola, asleep in a chair at the front of the house, his mind like a rock in a lake, largely weight and no interaction. Mendez, like a water bug skimming along the surface, very aware of her surroundings as she paced the property line outside, hand on her gun, looking for an excuse to use it. Jarrod, deep in structured thought like lists of numerical values in some color-coded chart, as he weighed pros and cons of some decision.
The judge upstairs, worrying about the FBI and the situation she was in. I skimmed over her quickly, making a mental note to return later, to ask her the questions that had been brewing awhile. But now was not for that. Now was to show Tommy what was possible.
I moved out, to the street, to the edge of my range, careful to go slow and not to lose him or disorient him in this new space.
There are so many of them, Tommy said. So many.
Minds dotted the street, up and down in the houses, some sleeping, some not. A cluster of school-aged girls in the closer house, watching some kind of scary movie as a group. A couple having an argument farther down the road. Mind after mind lined up like eggs in an endless carton, disappearing at the edge of my range. And closer, a man walking his dog, the dog’s simple thought shapes popping off him like cartoon bubbles.
Maybe Tommy could see Mindspace after all; those cartoon bubbles certainly weren’t how my mind interpreted the world.
I could feel him tiring, already; you worked for years to develop the endurance to stay here long, to control your telepathy for any length of time, and I’d had to work like heck to get mine back when I’d lost it. I may never get it all back. But what I had I was grateful for.
I’d have to tell Swartz that, at our next meeting. I was grateful for the control I was getting back.
Ready to go back? I asked Tommy.
Yeah.
I left slowly, quietly, pulling us both back to the real world and our bodies with the utmost of gentleness. His wonder and sorrow at leaving mixed with all the emotions bubbling up inside me, until we surfaced, and I let him go.
He took a minute to wake up, and yawned.
“Let’s get you ready for bed,” I said.
I’d forgotten how much I’d missed teaching. I’d forgotten . . . Tommy was going to be special one day, and I wouldn’t be here to see him grow into it.
Not that it would matter if Sibley got ahold of him.
* * *
A few minutes later I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water and found Judge Parson sitting there, in a thick robe over flannel pajamas buttoned all the way up to her neck. Her hands circled a chunky mug full of tea on the kitchen table. She looked at me when I came in, like she was daring me to challenge her right to pajamas in her own house. I declined.
Instead I fixed myself a glass of water and came and sat down next to her. Her body language stiffened when I sat, but I stayed anyway. I was getting more and more concerned about Tommy, about the vision, and since he’d gone to bed it was only getting worse. If Cherabino had been here, she would have said the judge was one of the apexes around which this whole case turned, and yet the judge was avoiding me. The fact that I had seen her hardly at all in two days was like a red flashing light.
“Tommy and I watched part of the trial today,” I told her, after a moment of silence.
Parson shook her head. She really didn’t like having me here. “He should be doing homework.”
“He did that already,” I said. “He wanted to know what you were working on. Especially if it was important enough that he was attacked to stop it.”
“It was a bad idea. Yesterday’s testimonies would have been entirely inappropriate for a child. Today was better, but you should have checked with me about the content before you presumed to let him observe.”
“You seem stressed,” I said. In the interview rooms, this would be a real flag.
“Of course I’m stressed. I have a major media trial to preside over—one in which the ADA’s star witness has disappeared—and letters containing death threats arriving at my office. Not to mention my child, whom you keep insisting on bringing into danger.”
“The star witness has disappeared?” I asked her. That was right—I’d heard about it a week ago in the papers and again from Mendez. I refused to engage with her on the her-kid-in-danger topic—I was here to help, and if she couldn’t see that, she wasn’t paying attention.
She nodded. “She disappeared. She was a licensed prostitute, who was supposed to testify that she saw the defendant beating his mistress to within an inch of her life that night. The lady of the night left in a hurry, so she didn’t see whatever the final blow was, but it establishes a timeline and puts a considerable weight of suspicion on the defendant. The ADA says she was very concerned at depositions about her safety—it’s possible she went underground for her own protection.”
“But you don’t believe so,” I said.
She shook her head again. “The kind of people that work with this man . . . he’s been associated with more than one serious high-level criminal. If you believe the charges, he beat Savannah’s premier escort to death, breaking her jaw and thirteen bones in her body before she died. The lady of the night may have been right to fear for her safety. I have the difficult decision of whether to admit her deposition as evidence now. Taylor has a right to it, so far as it goes, but if she’s left town, it does cast her credibility into doubt and the defense will use that to full advantage.”
“If someone else has made her leave town?” I asked, meaning, someone killed her.
“The police will track it down eventually. They always do. But I don’t think they’re going to do it in time for this trial, and I’d like to get it buttoned up enough that we’re unlikely to get an appeal.”
“You think he did it. You think he killed his mistress.”
She paused for the critical moment that made me believe she did. But what she said was “I think he’s entitled to a fair trial. And so will every newspaper and television station who’s sent a reporter.” She paused, discomfort sitting on her strongly. “Some of them are running the story of what happened to my son.”
It felt like she was going to say something more, but then she didn’t. “What are they saying?” I asked. I hadn’t watched TV since I’d gotten here, but clearly the media were important to her. If they were escalating the situation with Fiske or whomever else, I probably needed to know about it.
“Some of them say I’m brave to stay around despite everything.” She seemed uncomfortable with that, and shying away from something. “Some say I’m a villain for ruling so harshly against him at times. Pappadakis has quite a following, since he’s active in charity circles. They run tape of him feeding the hungry, or visiting the orphanage, and he can do no wrong. Anyone who knows the truth knows he’s involved in shady deals. Anyone who know
s the truth will know I’m not the criminal here. He’s accused of beating a woman to death, for crying out loud. The media is being unreasonable.”
“Why are you getting attention and not District Attorney Taylor?” I asked her. “Seems strange. He’s the prosecutor.”
She shrugged. “It’s the reality of the situation that a woman in my position is more remarkable than a black man in his, at least here in Savannah. Add in a child in danger, and the media will enjoy reporting.”
“It bothers you.”
“Yes, it bothers me. I preside over a jury trial! They decide innocence or guilt, not me. The ADA lays out all the damning evidence against this monster in sheep’s clothing. And yet I get the time on the media with people questioning my every move. And the letters! I get death threats daily in the mail, and Taylor gets maybe one a week.” The world was an unfair and unjust place, she thought, and her ex-husband and the FBI poking around were only making it more stressful for everyone. She didn’t really believe another attack was imminent, and anyway, she’d much rather focus on the things she could control and get this trial done beyond reproach.
I took a moment to reflect, to let her reflect, but she dampened down her thoughts with all the suspicions of a cop in front of a telepath. No additional information there; she didn’t trust me.
So I tried a different tactic. “You realize that in all of this, you’ve never talked about Tommy in terms of anything but his impact on you?”
“I’m doing the best I can,” she said immediately, even though it was clear she wasn’t. “I’m a single mom with a high-level critical job, and we both must adjust as best we can.”
“Why take him out of school when things get rough?” I asked. “Why not just let his father pick him up and take him for a while?”
“Quentin is a criminal,” she said, almost spitting the words. “He’s a criminal and a manipulator and a liar. He’ll tell you what he thinks you want to hear, and he’ll use it to manipulate you, even if it doesn’t make him money. Tommy will take on those qualities over my dead body. Nannies are the far better choice.”
“You don’t spend a lot of time with your son,” I pushed, sensing a secret or a frustration here.
“I do the best I can!”
“You don’t act like he’s very important to you, and I don’t understand why you would have married Quentin if you hate him so much.”
“Tommy was an accident, okay?” she said, nearly spitting the words. “Quentin deceived me and married me, and then I was pregnant. There wasn’t a choice. There were only decisions. There are always decisions. I’m a single mother, and I’m doing a decent job.”
I didn’t think she was, and it must have shown on my face, because she said, “You don’t get to judge me. You don’t get to judge me, not with your history.”
“What history?” I said, just to see how far she was going to take this.
“You don’t think I do research on the people I let around my son? Does the FBI know you’re still in Narcotics Anonymous?”
She was lashing out, and while it still stung, none of this was a secret from anyone. I was far more interested in what she was deflecting attention from than my own stuff right now, though maybe that was because of my phone call with Kara. Either way, I was chasing this down. “Technically that’s anonymous, thus the name. In my case it’s not a secret. Every employer I’ve ever had has known about my history and my recovery. What I need you to tell me now is, what are you hiding?”
An overwhelming sense of fear, and then anger, anger like a tidal wave.
“I’m not hiding anything,” she said, but even the most rookie interrogator in the world could have seen she was lying.
“You know I know that’s a lie. Are you certain that Pappadakis is the one sending the death threats?”
I saw her consider whether to walk out, and finally settle for an angry “It’s not him; it’s the don, you idiot. He called me twice and as much as said who it was.”
“What does he want?”
“There’s some kind of trade going on. I recuse myself from this case, or I let in suspect evidence from the defense, neither one of which I’m going to do.” A complicated set of feelings attached to all of that, and that overwhelming anger. “Because Pappadakis is under his protection or something stupid. So apparently he gets to get away with beating his mistress to death. The man thinks he’s going to manipulate me into letting him throw the trial, but it’s not going to work. I’ve got the jury sequestered, and the police are on board. Thus far we’ve blocked three attempts at influencing the jury members, and it’s getting worse. It’s a lot of pressure, but the pressure’s not right. Nobody gets to flaunt the law just because of who they know. I shouldn’t have to deal with this, but it’s here and he’s not going to flaunt the law on my watch. It’s just not going to happen.”
That was all true, so far as it went. But there was something she was holding back, something more complicated, and it was almost, almost there, but it slipped out of my mental fingers like sand.
“So, when you didn’t do what they wanted, they attacked your son to make you?” I asked. “Why didn’t you call the FBI yourself? Were you already working with the police?”
That created yet another round of anger and complex emotions. “If you have to ask me such ridiculous questions, you’re clearly incompetent. Go guard something. I have other things to do with my limited time. Like actually adjudicate.”
She stood up, sloshing her tea over the table, and walked out.
Interesting. I cleaned up the tea, trying to figure out what I’d learned, and trying to figure out if she’d try to get me fired—and if that would work. In Branen’s department, the answer was probably no. Branen played politics well, but he generally played them for his own team, and she wouldn’t count. Whether Jarrod played the same way or not was yet to be seen.
A lingering sense of guilt hit me, from Kara, from Parson twisting the knife. It did sting. I did feel guilty. But Judge Parson was just another interviewee, in a way. And whatever was going on with her, she was lying her ass off, and putting her son, Tommy, in potential danger along the way. She was hiding something, and she was lashing out to do it.
I wondered if she had a good reason, or if there was something deeper going on. Either way, if it got in the way of Tommy’s safety, I had no patience for it. I had a kid to keep safe, and a vision to stop.
CHAPTER 14
I went out into the main area, pretty sure I was going to see the judge complaining to Jarrod, but no. It was quiet, darkened, with only a few lamps brightening the space. Jarrod was nowhere to be seen, and a quick scan of the surroundings placed his mind upstairs somewhere, asleep. The judge as well, though it took me a moment to think about it to identify her.
I worried about what was going to happen, and I worried about Cherabino’s job and her sanity, with me not there for her if things went bad. Mostly I worried about me, and I tried not to think about my cravings for Satin, a cigarette, a way out.
I forced myself to be useful. I scanned the rest of the surroundings. I was here as a Minder, after all. Sridarin was out in a car across the street, along with the usual neighbors up and down it. Loyola was outside on the porch, feeling cold, bored, and watching for danger. I could see his outline faintly through the window in real space when I surfaced.
Mendez sat at the crosshatched thin folding table with a stack of paperwork. She looked up when my footsteps came within a few feet of her during the scan. Her angular face seemed more angular in the light, the lamp setting deep shadows into her face.
“Guess the paperwork never ends for most cops,” I said. Maybe she’d let me stand here awhile. She was the closest thing I had to authority I understood, to someone like Cherabino or Paulsen, rather than Jarrod, with his more complicated old-school style. She felt more familiar, and I needed familiar right now.
�
�How’s Tommy doing?” she asked me. She was tired, bone tired, and missing her girlfriend, which I understood but wasn’t allowed to comment on.
“He’s okay,” I said. “Nervous. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Can you walk me through what you have with the case so far?” I asked. “Specifically with the death threats. I think I’m missing something with the judge.” If I was going to be awake anyway, I might as well be working.
“The death threats were sent by US Mail, so we had jurisdiction when the senior staff attorney called us,” Mendez said. She pushed her notebook aside and pulled over some of the stacked folders from next to her.
“Why haven’t I seen the senior staff attorney?” I asked. “I’ve been in and out of her chambers and here at the house.”
“She’s at her mother’s house until all of this blows over. She was very concerned about the attack,” Mendez said. “Loyola talked to her, and all of our background checks held. She has alibis, and the judge didn’t object to her being gone for the foreseeable future. If anything, they fought.”
“They fought?” I asked.
She nodded.
“What did they fight about?”
“She didn’t want her to call us, supposedly, but she said she’d talked to one of the bailiffs and they thought it would be best, considering how much coverage the case was already getting in the media. They didn’t want it to turn into a conflict of interest, or the appearance of one, where the police and the prosecution are responsible for the life of the judge. Judge Parson has vigorously denied any such issues.”
“She doesn’t seem to want us here,” I said. “Any idea why?”
Mendez shrugged. “She’s said some things in passing, but I don’t think it’s as big an issue as you say it is. People don’t always appreciate having federal agents around poking into their lives, and trust me, we did a lot of poking in the hours after the attack.”
I was used to being extremely involved in a case, and sitting on the sidelines with imperfect information while other people did work was frustrating me. “What kind of poking?” I asked.